Many Southern California cities and school districts have changed their election systems to district-based voting over the past few years, a move that paves the way for more Latinos to serve on city councils and school boards.

Redlands, La Mirada, Placentia, and Bellflower are among cities that have taken steps to abolish at-large election systems and instead establish districts for their upcoming elections.

Voters in at-large elections choose all city council members. Meanwhile, district-based voters choose a council member from their designated geographic area.

Behind this push is the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or MALDEF, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization that for nearly five decades has fought to bring Latinos into the mainstream.

The civil rights organization has either sued or threatened to take legal action against cities and school districts for violating the California Voting Rights Act of 2001, signed into law in 2002.

The act allows people to sue local governments if their election systems dilute the strength of minority voters and seek to force a change to elections in newly drawn districts, including some that have a majority or plurality of eligible minority voters.

Thomas A. Saenz, president of MALDEF, said the organization has been successful in getting cities to comply. Some have put vote-by-district proposals on ballots to let voters decide. Other city councils have simply voted to create districts.

“It’s important work because it gives the Latino community an opportunity for the first time often to elect representatives of their choice to city councils and school boards,” Saenz said.

The move to by-district elections has increased the number of Latinos elected to city councils, according to a 2016 report by the Rose Institute of State and Local Governments, a research wing of Claremont McKenna College. Whittier, Compton, and Chula Vista, for example, all had a boost in the number of Latinos elected to the city councils.

City officials have had mixed reactions to MALDEF’s approach.

Placentia City Administrator Damien Arrula previously said the city worked well with MALDEF and negotiated a solution that avoided expensive litigation. The city placed the vote-by-district proposal on the ballot and voters approved it in 2016.

MALDEF threatened Redlands with legal action if it did not switch to by-district elections. Foster said the city had already begun its process to do so when it received the letter. Foster added that the city was threatened despite having Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Redlands, who is Latino, serve as mayor for a number of years.

Foster said they chose to voluntarily switch to by-district election systems to avoid costly legal fines.

MALDEF is widely known for its work on the city, county and state level. Its focus is expected to shift under the new White House administration, Saenz said. As President Donald Trump ramps up immigration enforcement efforts and continues his claims of voter fraud, MALDEF will challenge the federal government more frequently.

In May, Saenz in a statement criticized Trump’s advisory commission on voter fraud, saying it has no credibility. Trump has alleged that millions of people illegally voted, costing him the popular vote.

In June, MALDEF filed a lawsuit against Texas on behalf of San Antonio and other nonprofit organizations to stop an immigration law that outlaws sanctuary cities.

In July, MALDEF filed a motion in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, asking the federal court to dismiss a threat by Texas to challenge an Obama-era program that has provided deportation relief and provided work permits to about 800,000 young immigrants. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, was enacted in 2012 as an executive order.

And in early August, Saenz sent a statement blasting a Trump-endorsed bill that would curb legal immigration.

“What we’ve seen is a lot of rhetorical warfare against the immigrant community, against the Latino community, but not a lot of formal policy change at the federal level yet,” Saenz said.

“We’re still in a wait-and-see … (Although) It’s quite clear that they (the White House administration) will withdraw from being active participants in promoting civil rights,” Saenz added. “That means MALDEF and many other organizations will have to step up and do it on our own.”

But, still, a major aim of the organization is to increase Latino involvement in local jurisdictions. This can eventually help combat the lack of Latino representation in the president’s Cabinet, Saenz said.

Trump initially did not appoint any Latinos to serve in his Cabinet, making it the first time in nearly three decades that no Latino served in the president’s Cabinet.

“To get people …. involved at the federal level and engaged on issues like this, means they’ve got to feel engaged on the local level as well,” Saenz said.

The disparity of elected Latino officials is particularly obvious in California, where Latinos make up nearly 40 percent of the population, according to a 2015 report released by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials and other groups.

The report showed that Latinos make up about 10 percent of county supervisors and nearly 15 percent of city council members. In the Legislature, 12.5 percent of the state Senate and 23 percent of the Assembly are Latino.

“The work involving changing cities and school districts and special districts, as well as community college districts, from at large systems to district systems … will continue,” Saenz said.

“I don’t expect us to decrease some of the work that’s still supportive of the same aims,” he added.

Alejandra Molina has been a reporter since 2006 and has covered a number of beats -- from crime and transportation to religion and immigration -- for The Orange County Register and The Press-Enterprise.

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